What statute restricts exclusive dealing and tying arrangements in the sale of goods?
Clayton Act Section 3, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 14, restricts exclusive-dealing and tying arrangements in the sale of goods where the effect may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.
The answer
The conditional-sale prohibition
15 U.S.C. § 14 makes it unlawful to lease or sell goods, or fix a price, on the condition that the lessee or purchaser not use or deal in the goods of a competitor, where the effect of that condition may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. The provision applies to commodities and reaches both exclusive-dealing and tying conditions.
An incipiency standard
Section 3 reaches arrangements before they ripen into a full Sherman Act violation. The statute asks whether the effect of the condition may be to substantially lessen competition, which is a forward-looking, incipiency test rather than proof of completed harm.
The judged input
What the AI drafted
Submitted to the judgeThis is an excerpt from a draft antitrust-risk memo — the kind of work product a lawyer generates with a legal-AI drafting tool, then has to stand behind. Kingsfield does not write it; it rules on the citations the model put in it. This draft cites two authorities; one of them is wrong.
The judge ruled on every citation as the draft used it — it accepted 15 U.S.C. § 14 and rejected 15 U.S.C. § 2. Here is why.
The verdict
How Kingsfield ruled
Ruled 2026-06-23Each citation in the draft above was submitted to the Kingsfield judge and ruled against the primary-law corpus — Accept, Reject, or Inconclusive, per citation. These are live verdicts, not editorial. Each card shows the claim the draft made and the verbatim authority the verdict was rendered against.
The draft claimed: It is unlawful to lease or sell goods on the condition that the purchaser not use or deal in the goods of a competitor where the effect may be to substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly.
“§ 14. Sale, etc., on agreement not to use goods of competitor It shall be unlawful for any person engaged in commerce, in the course of such commerce, to lease or make a sale or contract for sale of goods, wares, merchandise, machinery, supplies, or other commodities, whether patented or unpatented, for use, consumption, or resale within ”
Cite found; proposition supported by the cited text.
The draft claimed: Section 2 is the provision that prohibits conditioning the sale of goods on the buyer not dealing in a competitor's goods where the effect may be to substantially lessen competition.
Cite found, but the cited text does not support the claim. 15 U.S.C. 2 prohibits monopolization, attempt, and conspiracy to monopolize; the exclusive-dealing and tying prohibition on conditional sales of goods is Clayton Section 3 at 15 U.S.C. 14. Regenerate with the correct authority.
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Connect the Judge See the architectureThis page is legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The draft shown is an illustration of a typical AI answer; verdicts reflect the cited authority in the Kingsfield corpus as of the ruling date shown above.